EverNote vs. OneNote

I recently discovered OneNote and Evernote. I installed Evernote based on a productivity article I read, and while reading a tutorial on effectively using Evernote, I also discovered OneNote.

A friend (thanx Giri!) recommended Google Keep, but I declined to try it. The major issue? You have to keep your information in the Cloud, Google’s Cloud. You don’t have a choice and that makes me a little uncomfortable. Maybe I am old-fashioned (or not old-enough-fashioned), but I never bought into the whole thin-client thing (sorry McNealy). Both OneNote and Evernote give you a choice to save locally or in the Cloud. OneNote on your SkyDrive and Evernote…somewhere out there. This is also partly why I use a local email client (lately Outlook – ugh), not Gmail.

Anyway, more about the Notebook battles. Evernote does not have as many levels. Evernote has Notebooks which can have Notes. That’s it. OneNote on the other hand, has Notebooks, which have Sections and each Section can have Pages. For someone like me who has an information-organization fetish, the ability to divide and subdivide information is too attractive. So, for example a whole book can be organized into a single Notebook – the Sections become ummm, Sections! And of course, the Pages are the Chapters.

Evernote has the Web Clipper, and is integrated into the Browser (at least into Firefox), so clipping URLs, Screenshots etc. is easy. And it is also integrated into Google Search – it searches its own notes in tandem with Google. It is even integrated into Outlook, which I have not yet explored, but that is dangerous, because Microsoft will no doubt defend incursions into its own territory.

In cases like this I usually end up using both tools, until one overwhelmingly takes over. This is better than making a choice at the start, because the utility of any well, utility is only clear after extensive and detailed usage. Once I understand my information gathering and classification style better, I will be able to make a more informed decision. So far, the odds are definitely in favor of OneNote – finally, Microsoft may have done something right!